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a.k.a. Gamera tai Uchu Kaiju Bairasu
(lit. Gamera against Space Monster Viras)
Destroy All Planets
company: Daiei Motion Picture Co.
year: 1968
runtime: 81′
director: Noriaki Yuasa
cast: Kojiro Hongo, Toru Takatsuka,
Carl Craig, Peter Williams,
Carl Clay, Michiko Yaegaki,
Junko Yashiro, Koji Fujiyama
writer: Nisan Takahashi
cinematography: Akira Kitazaki
music: Kenjiro Hirose
Reviewed from a screener provided
by Shout! Factory, LLC.
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Click here for Gamera vs. Gyaos

If Gamera vs. Gyaos was the high water mark of the first Gamera cycle then the following year’s Gamera vs. Viras marked the beginning of its steady decline. Working with resources whose limitations are often painfully obvious, Viras relies far too heavily on stock footage from the previous three entries while offering far too little original material in exchange. Though director Noriyaki Yuasa’s longtime personal favorite undoubtedly played better with contemporary audiences, offering a sort of hit parade of earlier monster footage, it has aged especially poorly, and rarely seems anything more than one of the cheapest outings of the franchise.

The film follows Masao (Toru Takatsuka) and Jim (Carl Craig), members of the Japanese and American boy scouts who find themselves kidnapped by the globe-conquering denizens of deep space planet Viras, who have themselves implanted a brain control device onto the neck of the monster Gamera. With the United Nations opting to surrender to the invaders rather than sacrifice the two boys, it’s left to Masao and Jim to find a kink in the Viran’s plans and put an end to the invasion for good.

Gamera vs. Viras actually begins quite promisingly, with a pre-credits look into the working life of the guardian of the universe. Just as the first Viran space ship is about to attack Earth Gamera swoops in to save the day, leading to what must be the most bad-ass introduction of any of the first series of films. Unfortunately it’s all downhill from there. Where Nisan Takahashi’s writing on the previous film was tight and professional, here it is almost universally silly. None of it ever quite works, least of all the idea of the United Nations surrendering all the world so as to save two boy scouts and the frequent attempts at comic relief.

Effects men Yuzo Kaneko and Kazufumi Fuji are given precious little to do and even less to do it with. The Viran space ships, spinning contraptions made of yellow and black striped globes, are certainly interesting, and their minimalist interiors make for one of the few high points of the film. The all-important monster footage is mostly stock. The various monster battles fromGamera vs. Barugon and Gamera vs. Gyaos are plundered at length with the excuse given that the Virans are trying to learn of Gamera’s weaknesses. Moments in which the brain-controlled Gamera is supposedly destroying various landmarks are also stock, tinted footage from the leveling of Tokyo in Gamera, The Giant Monster and the colorful destruction of Kurobe Dam fromGamera vs. Barugon. Amusingly, the amount of stock footage you see depends on which version of the film you are viewing. The American Destroy All Planets cut contains the most, ballooning the running time to 89 minutes, while the cut contained on the 2002 Daiei / Toshiba DVD contains the least, running only 72 minutes in total.

New stuff is painfully hard to come by, with Gamera’s titular foe only appearing in the final ten minutes or so of film. Yuasa and his effects crew try and make the best of their minimal resources, but the climactic monster battle (limited to a single beach location) never seems anything but small scale. Viras itself is a pretty lame opponent, a lumpy silver squid-thing short on special abilities and whose suitmation technique is painfully obvious. The only really memorable aspect of the original content is the bizarrely extreme violence of it. The new monster’s birth is heralded by the beheading of an entire space ship crew, and its fight with Gamera culminates with the gruesome impaling of our favorite giant turtle. While the former is merely strange, the latter was honestly disturbing to this unsuspecting reviewer.

Gamera vs. Viras heralded the new wave of just-for-kids Gamera films, and will undoubtedly play better with a younger crowd than with other demographics. Kids keen on affable flying turtles will find Masao and Jim’s first encounter with the creature, whom they meet while toying around in an experimental submarine, wish fulfillment of a kind, and it’s nice to imagine that there’s a super hero, however clumsy and improbable, watching over each of us.  Though mostly a bust, Viras did have at least one important impact on the franchise.  It marks the first time in the series that a Japanese boy is teamed with a Caucasian counterpart, a trend that would continue through Gamera vs. Zigra, ending only with Daiei Motion Picture Co.’s bankruptcy.

Shout! Factory’s double feature DVD of Gamera vs. Gyaos / Gamera vs. Viras (single sided, dual layer, 7.5 gigabytes) gives fans of the friend to all children something to cheer about – two films from the franchise for less than half the price of a R2 Japanese import. The Gamera series has had the dubious honor of being plundered by gray market ‘public domain’ DVD companies since the early days of the format, and Shout!’s decision to relegate the rest of the series to cost effective double bills seems a smart move.  It is pertinent to note that the version of Gamera vs. Viras included here is neither the 89′ international version (same as the A.I.P. TV cut) or the director-approved 72′ cut that was released by Daiei / Toshiba in 2002, but an 81′ compromise that contains the majority of stock monster fights but loses some of the footage from Gyaos .

The transfers of both films, sourced from the same high definition masters Kadokawa recently released to DVD and Blu-ray in Japan, are superior to anything yet seen stateside for either. As with the previous two Shout! Factory Gamera discs, image improvement over the older 2002 Daiei / Toshiba masters are subtle but significant. Colors are slightly improved, detail more natural, and neither of the new video masters suffers from the contrast boosting or edge enhancement of their earlier counterparts. Framing seems right for both (2.35:1 for Gyaos and a slightly wider 2.38:1 for Viras) and damage is at minimal levels, mostly appearing during optical shots that have always been dirtier than the remaining footage.

The audio selections are unexpectedly robust. Both films are presented with their original 2.0 Japanese tracks, both of which sound excellent, but a nice selection of dubs are included as well. Gamera vs. Gyaos is accompanied by the A.I.P. Return of the Giant Monsters dub and the internationally produced English track later utilized by Sandy Frank, while  Gamera vs. Viras is accompanied only by the A.I.P. Destroy All Planets dub track. All of the dubs are obviously sourced from inferior materials, and there are moments where the editing of the audio to fit the new Japanese video masters leaves something to be desired, but their inclusion at all is welcome.

Equally unexpected, though for opposite reasons, are the subtitle translations that accompany the original Japanese audio selections. Good news first – the translation for Gamera vs. Viras seems to be new, and is a marked improvement over the stilted, sometimes nonsensical one that was included on the 2002 Daiei / Toshiba release. Gamera vs. Gyaos is another matter all together, unfortunately. As the screen captures above indicate, the translation is just a lazily updated variation on that present on the older Japanese disc. I hate to say it, but these subtitles for Gyaos are just plain bad, ranking below the even fansubs that accompanied the laserdisc-sourced bootlegs of a decade or more ago. The occasional updates to the crude original translation often cause issues of their own (as in the first set of screen captures above – newer are top, older are bottom), while other moments (set three) just don’t fit in with the rest of a character’s dialogue at all. I know that the double feature discs were produced on a more rushed schedule than the earlier Gamera, The Giant Monster or Gamera vs. Barugon solo discs, but the subtitles should have been paid more attention than they obviously were.

Supplemental content is limited to publicity image galleries for each film. Again, I understand the rushed nature of this release and the limits of home video production resources, but would it have been too much trouble to include the theatrical trailers for the films in question? Packaging has been slimmed down likewise, with the booklets of the first two releases here replaced with a single page dual purpose chapter listing and advertisement for other Shout! Factory releases. The disc art itself is attractive, based on the color mini lobby images produced for the two films, with the same Gamera anatomy drawing that accompanied the past two releases visible on the reverse of the artwork.

I’m trying not to be too hard on this disc, as what Shout! Factory has provided is still a great value even if the final product leaves something to be desired. I dare say I was never expecting to see legitimate stateside issues of the original Gamera franchise at all, and for that Shout! should be commended. With the SRP set at a reasonable $19.93 (with some online retailers offering discounts beyond that) fans will definitely want to indulge.

The Gamera vs. Gyaos / Gamera vs. Viras double feature DVD is due out on September 21st from Shout! Factory, day and date with their double feature DVD of Gamera vs. Guiron/ Gamera vs. Jiger. Both discs can currently be pre-ordered through Amazon.com and other online retailers.